A Weekend with Adam!

As mentioned before, Adam made a surprise visit to Alaska. Since our time together was limited each day was jam packed. Almost every evening we would hit up the local Blockbuster video store and rent a movie. I have not watched movies or t.v aside from the occasional Netflix download so it was a treat.

The sun sets early here in Alaska. Current sunrise is 9:41am and sunset is 3:54pm. Although the dark is not pretty the sunsets certainly are. The sky becomes filled with hues of orange and pink. Some of the best sunsets I’ve seen (or remembered seeing) have been here in Alaska.

Pretty sunset, not so pretty $3.93 gas

Taken from the Blockbuster parking lot

During his time here Adam offered his skills of technology several times. If you don’t know Adam let me tell you he is one great “techie”. He was able to recover 48,000+ files off of a corrupt hard drive from one of our congregation members, put in a new graphics card on one of the old church computers, and was able to increase computer speed on the dinosaur computer (the music computer). He also took apart a laptop to troubleshoot and discover that the motherboard was corrupt. We make Adam work for his stay in Alaska. Oh and I should mention if you need a someone to update your website Adam does website design. Check out his services on his web portfolio http://adamavelallemant.com/.

On black Friday Adam and I decided to embark on the shopping madness. Adam had never been Black Friday shopping so we decided to hit up the stores. We first made a game plan by checking out some of the stores websites. We hit up several places including target (which was crazy busy), Koles (where we purchased the most items), Wal-Mart, and of course McDonalds for breakfast (which they completely messed up our order but it ended okay). Black Friday was ultimately a success as Adam scored a Nintendo 3DS, and I got most of my family Christmas presents bought.

Both times Adam has been here it has been too cloudy to witness Mt. McKinley or the Northern Lights. So I decided to show him the next best thing. We took a drive north towards Palmer to catch the mountains there and to drive up Hatcher’s Pass. The drive itself is gorgeous. On this day there was significant low cloud cover due to the inlet’s drastic water temperature compared to the air. It created some artistic photo opportunities and we did get to see the mountains after driving north of Palmer.

Twin Peaks, peaking out from behind the clouds

On the way to Palmer...its definitely winter

Crossing the bridge over the inlet

Pioneer Peak, with low clouds at the base

After making a pit stop at the scenic overview turnout Adam and I headed to Hatcher Pass. I was rather impressed with my car and it’s studded tires. There was the occasional transmission glitch (the transmission is going out but we are not replacing it until it does), but I was impressed with how the car handled on the steep climb on ice and snow.

Picture compliments of Adam

Pit stop at the scenic overlook-Pioneer Peak in the distance

On our way to Hatcher Pass

On the way up we passed a plethora of skiers, sledders, and snowboarders. There were even some snow machiners (Alaskan’s call them snow machines but they will forever be “Snowmobiles” to me. In my opinion a “Snow Machine” is something that makes artificial snow on the skiing hills). We paused near the top to watch two snowboarders trudge through the knee/thigh deep snow to reach the top point to snowboard down. Recalling my earlier encounter at Hatcher’s Pass I understood how exhausting it was.

You are looking at a river at the entrance to Hatcher Pass

Going up...

Pit stop, beautiful scenery

The snowboarders we watched for 15 or so minutes

We are in the Avalanche area...actually most of Hatcher Pass is an avalanche area

After the sun had set, we returned down the mountain pass. We passed by two moose near the road which startled me as it was at the dusky point of the day where the sun had set but was still giving off light making my headlights useless. Anyways Mrs. Moose and her baby were cute. 

Mommy Moose

B-E-A-U-tiful sunset

We then decided to have a date night out, a rare occurrence. Adam and I went neon bowling at the local Eagle River bowling alley. While Adam may have the better form, I had the better score. I got a turkey and several strikes… I guess I have my dad’s talent for bowling. I even won a prize since I got a strike when there was a special neon pin. After 3 games we were all bowled out.

Adam has good form

Strike for me...

I have two strikes in a row, soon to be a turkey

I was sad to see Adam leave but was glad to have had the opportunity to see him. It was a busy and fantastic weekend that went all too fast, but I look forward to the next time we are together.